Some things are bound to happen. Even if you don’t want them to, you know they’re coming. And so it is with a sense of inevitability that I write this post about the time that I fell down and actually hurt myself. I was trying to pick up a pile of laundry off the floor to carry it to my bed – THREE FEET AWAY – and went down like a rock in a small space and sprained my stupid ankle.

After every fall, every misstep that almost results in a fall, there’s a period of reflection and reconstruction of the events that led up to it. How could I have prevented that? There was no period of reflection this time, there was me, writhing in pain in the hallway screaming FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK OW FUCK OW OW OW OW WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKHEADED FUCKING SHIT FUCK

See also: Lalochezia.

Right about when I ran out of swear words and began repeating myself, it occurred that I’d probably done something bad this time. The swearing went on longer than usual and the pain wasn’t going away. Now the swearing and OW OW OW was joined by YOU STUPID BITCH WHY DIDN’T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL TRYING TO LIFT THE FUCKING LAUNDRY WHAT IF WE BROKE SOMETHING FUCKING OW GODDAMMIT FUCK SHIT FUCKING STUPID BITCH IT WAS THREE FUCKING FEET AWAY YOU COULDA JUST PUSHED THE FUCKING CLOTHES ACROSS THE FLOOR WHY DID YOU TRY TO PICK THEM UP HOLY FUCKING GOD OW OW OW OW FUCK

Eventually, the pain let up enough that I could breathe, and I tried propping my foot up against the wall to elevate it as I lay on the floor, whining a monotone mantra of ow ow ow ow ow the whole time, but my leg didn’t even have the strength to keep my foot up. So I did the next best thing! I curled into fetal position and sobbed my eyes out! With a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and fuck this disease and it’s not fair and ow ow ow and do I need to go to Urgent Care or not. I eventually got myself up, found that I could in fact put pressure on it but if I turned it any way from there it was suffering city. I fetched an ice pack from the freezer, a soda, and made a little nest out of my bed with my ankle elevated on ice and cried.

It sucked a lot, is what I’m saying. It has been a super shitty stressful week, and it was just the icing. And I lost my shit for awhile, took ativan, made contingency plans to work from home the next day if I needed to, and went to sleep. Eventually. Sort of. In pieces.

So today my ankle is twice its usual size and very tender, but still has full range of motion, even if some of those motions are owwie. So I don’t believe it to be broken, so I decided I didn’t need urgent care to tell me what to do, and took anti-inflammatories, iced my ankle and elevated it and stayed off my feet as much as possible. Cause that’s what they’d say and then charge me money after costing me hours of my life and having to put on real clothes.

And despite all of the crying and hurt and bullshit, I am grateful that I had an army at my disposal at all times. Even though I never reached out to them. If I’d decided to go to the ER last night, I’d have had a handful of available rides. If I’d needed anything today, I’d have had several people willing to bring it to me. Once I announced my stupidity to Facebook, I had many offers of help. At no point did I feel helpless and alone. I was very crisis-management mode once the writhing was over, and even in the writhing I was mentally giving myself a time limit before I called someone for help, and I knew it would be there. That’s awesome and can not be understated. GO GO GODZILLA SQUAD.

I’m giving it another night, and tomorrow I’ll see if I can hobble along with the walker or something. Cause I favor my right foot when walking with the cane, so of course I hurt the left one. And walking with the cane on my left hand feels weird as it’s not my dominant hand. So maybe the walker for a bit. We’ll see. But for now, I have a nest, an ice pack, chemicals for the pain, warm cats, Good Eats on TV, and a friend bringing me dinner later. I’m sitting pretty.

Even if my ankle ain’t so pretty.

You can blame Jack for the title. It’s how he reacted when I told him what happened.